"This is a good time of year for the woods; no mosquitos, pretty warm,
mighty nice overhead. Can't say so much for underfoot." He lifted and
surveyed one foot comically, and Bob noticed that his shoes were not
armed with the riverman's long, sharpened spikes. "Pretty good hunting
here in the fall, and fishing later. Not much now. Up here to look
around a little?"

"No, not quite," said Bob vaguely.

"This ain't much of a pleasure resort, and a stranger's a pretty
unusual thing," said the big man by way of half-apology for his
curiosity. "Up buying, I suppose--or maybe selling?"

Bob looked up with a beginning of resentment against this apparent
intrusion on his private affairs. He met the good-humoured, jolly eyes.
In spite of himself he half smiled.

"Not that either," said he.

"You aren't in the company's employ?" persisted the stranger with an
undercurrent of huge delight in his tone, as though he were playing a
game that he enjoyed.

Bob threw back his head and laughed. It was a short laugh and a bitter
one.

"No," said he shortly, "--not now. I've just been fired."

The big man promptly dropped down beside him on the log.

"Don't say!" he cried; "what's the matter?"

"The matter is that I'm no good," said Bob evenly, and without the
slightest note of complaint.

"Tell me about it," suggested the big man soberly after a moment. "I'm
pretty close to Fox. Perhaps----."

"It isn't a case of pull," Bob interrupted him pleasantly. "It's a case
of total incompetence."

"That's a rather large order for a husky boy like you," said the older
man with a sudden return to his undertone of bantering jollity.

"Well, I've filled it," said Bob. "That's the one job I've done good and
plenty."

"Haven't stolen the stove, have you?"

"Might better. It couldn't be any hotter than Collins."

The stranger chuckled.

"He _is_ a peppery little cuss," was his comment. "What did you do to
him?"

Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be considered
humorous. The stranger became grave.

"That all?" he inquired.

Bob's self-disgust overpowered him.

"No," said he, "not by a long shot." In brief sentences he told of his
whole experience since entering the business world. When he had
finished, his companion puffed away for several moments in silence.

"Well, what you going to do about it?" he asked.

"I don't know," Bob confessed. "I've got to tell father I'm no good.
That is the only thing I can se